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Beyond the Hero’s Journey

The Heroine’s Journey

As we assemble a catalog of the heroine’s experience – aligned with nature, suspended between the poles of courtship and maternity, hounded by a cruel and lonesome adversary – note how she gathers to her aid deformed and stunted males: dwarves, hunchbacks, trolls and toads. All masculine in various ways, strong and savage – none of them a romantic possibility.

Here again is Bonnie Friedman on Dorothy’s companions in Oz and one of my favorite parentheticals ever:

‘The men of Oz are all missing one key organ (the lion wants ”the nerve!”).’